Simantov

by Asaf Ashery

  “I don’t take sugar now. But thanks anyway.”

  Since their break up, they met only at public ceremonies connected with police work, such as at the President’s house on Independence Day, when he smiled at her and she just walked away. On those occasions, they both behaved as if nothing had happened.

  But there were other occasions, unexpected, like this one, in which they both behaved as if they were suddenly allergic to the surrounding air. This happened at birthdays and retirement parties of colleagues that neither of them particularly cared for and thus assumed the other would skip.

  Once they ran into each other in a shop, which Mazzy subsequently stopped patronizing. Another time, they met at the movies, which was particularly awkward because Gaby and Yariv were obliged to shake hands.

  Now Mazzy hated herself for two reasons: for involuntarily pushing a framed photo of Gaby and Noga to the center of the desk and for wearing that particular bra this morning; it had been washed once too often and offered no support at all.

  The last time they had found themselves alone was long before she was pregnant with Noga. Perhaps she should have stuck with the Pilates for a few more weeks, never mind the shrill exhortations of the overly-gorgeous instructor, the smell of sweat, and the deafening music. She despised those exercises, but right now she hated her thighs even more, her flabby waist, and the slight slackness in her upper arms, almost imperceptible to a stranger’s eye, except that Yariv wasn’t a stranger. The first time he saw her, all those parts were on youthful display.

  Yariv was the first man she shared a home with, and who walked around in his underwear. He was her mentor at work, the first and last affair she had with a colleague. He wasn’t her first lover but he was the first to teach her the joys of sex.

  Before he came along, there had been two adolescent bedfellows, a soldier and a student, for whom foreplay meant licking her neck and ears and twisting her nipples in a painful attempt to arouse her.

  Yariv was the first to show her how to experience sex differently, free from the posturing and tactics inherited from her mother, and make her come.

  She was pleased that he had shown up now, when she was strong and independent, head of a department, happily married, mother to Noga. Mazzy was in a good place. But the need to enumerate all her personal and professional achievements was proof positive that he still occupied her thoughts. You didn’t have to be a detective to figure this out; all you needed was to have a pulse.

  Yariv also knew this awkwardness was nothing to do with the sugar he’d spooned into her espresso.

  Something was still simmering on a slow burner, a smoldering ember that went all the way back to that lost evening when she asked him where they were heading. He knew how big the gap was between the answer she expected and the only one he could give, so he just upped and left.

  Two days later, there was no sign of Mazzy or her belongings in the apartment.

  The memory was a little too close for comfort. Any newly graduated psychologist would have recognized the next question as a projection. Not that Yariv put any stock in psychology.

  “Did you miss me?” he asked.

  Mazzy froze, not because of the past, but because of the future and the possibilities it harbored. His visit had one particular implication she dreaded.

  “Are you coming back to Missing Persons?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Yariv, what’s going on?”

  “A girl went missing. Shalvi’s daughter.”

  “When?”

  “Last night. But it was designated urgent.”

  She gave him a doubtful look that reminded him of Moscovitch.

  “There are new procedures. I’ve been told I have to talk to you.”

  “Since when do you do what you’re told?”

  In the absence of a reply, silence settled over the room.

  “Alright, hand over the file,” Mazzy said in the most businesslike tone she could muster.

  “Okay.”

  “What did you say her name was?”

  “I didn’t. It’s Estie Shalvi-Aiello.”

  Mazzy jotted the name down on a yellow pad, and underlined it twice; then she lifted her eyes to meet his questioning gaze.

  “So how does this work, exactly?” he asked.

  “Izzy will try her crystals or check the parents’ auras, Itzkovitch will do what he always does, and Larissa, my fortuneteller, will open her cards and surprise us.”

  “How about your mom?”

  “She’s fine, thank you. I’ll tell her you said hi.”

  The next silence between them painted him into a corner. He was not sure what to ask next but wanted to say something to prolong the meeting.

  “Do you need something from the scene to get a vibe?”

  “That’s not how it works.”

  “How, then?”

  “Differently.”

  “Is there some detective I can talk to, or will I have to deal with my ex throughout this investigation?”

  “Chief Inspector Biton, ‘Soothsayer’ works a little differently. We have our own angles of approach. The fact that you don’t know our people and are not familiar with our methods won’t stop our unit from finding the facts that you and Shalvi need pronto.”

  Sima’s spiky head appeared around the door. “You have a caller on line two.”

  “We’re busy. Check who it is, and I’ll get back to them.”

  “It’s your daughter’s daycare.”

  Mazzy lifted the phone and swiveled her chair away from Yariv in one fluid motion.

  “Aurora? Is everything okay?”

  “Noga is still here. She’s playing with Rishi in the ball pit. They’re so cute together, like a bride and groom. But come soon. She’s getting restless, and I don’t want her to fall asleep here; you know how cranky she is when she wakes up.”

  Mazzy exhaled, but had Gaby been within reach she would have strangled him.

  It was Gaby who insisted on this fancy daycare center with kids named Rishi, where they always told you who your kid was playing with because this was an important stage in their development and they needed to go through this spiritual experience to the max.

  Anthroposophy, my ass. Mazzy wasn’t keen on this daycare where the teacher never stopped smiling even while making vague, guilt-inducing comments about what a lousy mom she was. But now was the time for those breathing exercises she and Gaby learned together, time to control the anger and not give Yariv the satisfaction. She managed to say, very calmly, “Gaby’s on his way. He must be in traffic.”

  “On Wednesdays you usually pick her up.”

  “I know.”

  “Could you call him and check?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll call right away.”

  She hung up and looked at Yariv’s smug face.

  “If you have nothing to do, do it somewhere else.”

  “Like where?”

  “Not here. Isn’t some judge missing his daughter?”

  Yariv’s raised hands signaled, “As you wish,” and as soon as he left the room, Mazzy picked up the phone and called Gaby.

  A woman’s voice answered.

  “Doctor Pur is in surgery. Would you like to leave a message?”

  “Is he already in the OR?”

  “He’s on his way.”

  “Then page him. It’s urgent.”

  Mazzy knew exactly what the nurse was thinking: about Gaby Pur’s hysterical wife, how she pitied him for having to go through this impossible residency and then home to her every evening.

  But when Mazzy heard the echoes of the PA announcement, she felt better.

  “Sweetie, how many times have I asked you not to get them to call me on the PA? It’s so embarrassing when the entire floor has to hear that my wife is looking for me.”

  “Do you know what’s really embarrassing? When that dreadful daycare woman calls to say Noga is still there because her dad forgot to pick her up.”

  “Shit! It’s just that you
always pick her up on Wednesday…”

  “And on Sunday, Monday, and every other bloody day! You have one lousy day to pick her up from that damned Aurora! I asked you this morning because I am snowed with work and they just dumped another case on me. If you had a problem with it, you should have told me. Did you even take the car seat?”

  “No, I forgot.” She could almost hear the wheels in his organized, Ashkenazi head turning in all the wrong directions.

  “I’m sorry. We have a rare procedure here, and I was on call…”

  Breathe deeply. Relax. He didn’t mean it. He really didn’t.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll pick her up. I’m much closer.”

  “It’s a life-saving procedure…”

  Mistake. Big mistake. And the reaction would be correspondingly loud.

  “And what the fuck do you think I’m doing here? Playing hopscotch?”

  The flimsy office partitions shook. Heads turned in her direction. Gaby was right; it was embarrassing when the entire department heard you. Mazzy took another deep breath and listened to her husband’s soft voice.

  One of the things Gaby was not good at was wiggling out of such situations. His voice expressed genuine distress, not because he had screwed up, but because he had hurt her, caused her grief. She was always his first priority, even before Noga, who at this very moment was waiting at daycare. He never meant to screw up. He just always did.

  “You’re right. Sorry. I have nothing to say. My bad.”

  Clearly he didn’t really get what had angered her.

  To make a bad day worse, when Mazzy looked up, there was Larissa Sverenka in front of her.

  Larissa Sverenka was not good looking, but her face was unforgettable: arrogant and cunning but with a certain restraint that stemmed from her desire not to expose her feelings to anyone she considered her inferior. Which was pretty much everyone.

  Her eyes seemed too wise for her age, but today they were particularly lugubrious. Her thin lips were so tight as to almost be invisible. She threw down a tarot card with a picture of a Hermit, the bearded wanderer, holding in one hand a lantern emitting yellow light, and a staff, same yellow color, in the other.

  “Where is your cartoonist?” she demanded in a guttural accent that sounded like it could dig a hole in the road.

  “Larissa, I told you that even if you find something, you don’t have to come here in person. Take a few days off. Nobody expects you to show up for work so soon. The Shiva isn’t over…”

  “Where is your cartoonist? This is a picture of the one that killed Borislav.”

  Mazzy noticed a slight tic in the corner of Larissa’s eye, despite the cold resolution in her voice. Over the last week, she’d been trying in vain to comfort and support her cartomancer, eventually realizing that it was a lost cause. To Larissa, any show of feeling, given or received, was a sign of weakness.

  Mazzy summoned up her softest, most sympathetic tone.

  “Leave the card here and we’ll see what we can do with it. I know it’s painful for you, but we really can’t deal with this case now.”

  “Everyone else yes, but my brother no? What kind of country is this? You find people in the dumpster, and you don’t check what happened to them?”

  “Larissa, we don’t investigate murder cases; it’s not our mandate. I can’t change that.”

  “Send me your cartoonist.”

  “I can’t summon the identikit artist for a card. It’s not going to happen. It may screw up the lineup later, because they’ll find some homeless person with a hood and a cane. It could send the wrong message to the people working on the case.”

  “What message is that?”

  “That Soothsayer interferes with other departments.”

  “It should!”

  Larissa was a practical woman and right now motivated by revenge, but Mazzy wondered if there wasn’t something else, some other need. Larissa was the type that could never remain passive. Inaction drove her crazy. She couldn’t even stay home to mourn her loss. What was the point of sitting in her apartment grieving for her brother? How would that help his case?

  Right now, she had a big hole in her heart, and the only way she knew to fill it was through action.

  But Mazzy had seen the autopsy shots of Borislav. She did not want Larissa anywhere near the monster responsible for it.

  “We just got another case that we need to focus on. If you can’t handle it, let me know, but I’d rather have you working with me, unless you feel that it would undermine the investigation.”

  This was always Mazzy’s trump card. Larissa was, above all, committed to her special gift. She rarely needed reminding. Grabbing a deck of cards from her skirt pocket, she started shuffling them with dizzying dexterity.

  Like people who toss a coin every time they have to make a decision, Larissa drew a card when faced with even the most trivial matter.

  This time it was the Wheel of Fortune that lay upside down on the desk.

  “Everything revolves. We must leave the past behind and look ahead. There is a change. There is a direction. I guess it is my destiny to be stuck here with you.”

  Mazzy gazed at the card. She saw the smiling Sphinx, the four winged creatures, the Tetragrammaton, Anubis rising with the wheel and the serpent Typhon. She wondered if she could be so committed if something happened to one of her loved ones.

  Larissa’s expression had frozen and Mazzy guessed she had not been told everything the cartomancer saw in the card, but thought it best not to ask.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Panting, sweating, tingling and an accelerated heartbeat can be a good sign when you are twenty-five. When you’re almost fifty, and you wake up in the middle of the night experiencing these symptoms, along with five distinct scorch marks on your left hand and pressure in your rib cage, then terror rears its head, and wormwood fills your veins.

  Even if you happen to be Rachel Simantov.

  Most people fear the unknown. Most people seek knowledge. But not everyone. Not Rachel. Most of the time, Rachel possessed knowledge. Ignorance was a blessed shield for her, it was her way of hiding from herself.

  But now she woke up feeling as if she had been wrenched out of her home and left shivering in the cold.

  She breathed slowly, inhaling and exhaling to the rhythm of her heartbeat. Her hand touched her rib cage, feeling the feeble contraction. Despite the terror that gripped her, Rachel overcame the urge to grab the phone and dial 911. Instead, she made an effort to focus on the pain. Her left hand continued to throb but did not intensify. Soon she calmed down and the pressure became bearable, even though she still felt as if someone had clamped a vise on her rib cage and squeezed.

  She pulled at her nightgown sleeve and examined her biceps.

  Five tiny contusions were visible across the muscle, as if it had been gripped tightly by a hand. Another bruise was found near the wrist.

  It wasn’t a heart attack, but it was not exactly good news either. Rachel recalled the dream she’d been having just before the anxiety attack.

  She was standing on a rooftop; a broad white canopy stretched over her head and hail pelted her mercilessly. After a while, the storm subsided but the hail continued to fall on the canopy. A soothing smell of warm milk and cinnamon wafted through the air, and a predator’s confident smile flashed in front of her.

  A large, menacing raptor was circling overhead. Rachel tensed her muscles and dashed across the wet, slippery rooftop. The ice pellets jabbed into her, her shoulder throbbed. Something swooped from above.

  The scorching sensation returned, together with the panting, tingling, and runaway pulse. Fear flowed like venom through her veins. When it subsided, all that remained was the putrid scent in her nostrils.

  A miasma of milk, cinnamon and blood. A broken covenant. An abomination.

  THE SECOND GATE

  GRACE

  THE TENTH DAY

  A WEEK AND THREE DAYS OF THE COUNTING OF THE OMER

  “And I will
make justice the line, and righteousness the plummet; and hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters will overwhelm the shelter.”

  ISAIAH 28:17

  Hagar dislodged her laptop from its base, disconnected the cellphone from its charger, and threw a few papers into her handbag. A glance at the clock elicited a sibilant racy swearword.

  3:36am

  Another day going to work before sunrise. It had been much easier in her previous job, both physically and mentally. But two years ago, their representative called and informed her that she was being transferred to another department. Hagar accepted the order without a fuss. She owed it to them.

  She had been in thrall to those women her entire life.

  They had the means and the bureaucratic positions to make someone’s life a torment or a bed of roses. True, they were not at the top of the pyramid, but they were the architects.

  They were the ones who identified her from her middle school entrance exam, who moved her and her dysfunctional family to Tel Aviv. They were the only ones who knew what her mother had told her about fallen angels was true, and they explained it had nothing to do with the voices she kept hearing all the time. They were the ones who took care of her after her mother jumped off the roof, who sent her to the ranch in the North, expunged that pesky police record, and fixed her first job, at the office in Herzliya, where she became a junior partner after a very controversial election process. They steered her back to the straight and narrow when, against all odds and reason, she lost her good sense and fell in love with a dangerous ally.

  To her, they were everything: the protective mother, the big sister who shielded her under her wing.

  She was beholden to them, and they knew it.

  Her present job involved working with lay advocates at the rabbinical courts and other female lawyers specializing in gender discrimination. These activists hunted down the derelict husbands who wouldn’t grant a divorce and used every legal means to make their lives miserable. They sued employers who discriminated against women, and delved into legal and religious issues, knocking down barriers that seemed insurmountable. They examined the legal ramifications of parliamentary legislation and their impact on the status and welfare of women.